Seaview struggles in financial battle with government

By Neil ZolotCorrespondent

Tuesday

May 15, 2018 at 1:59 PMMay 15, 2018 at 1:59 PM

Sea View Retreat in Rowley is not closing, at least not yet. The nursing facility, which draws patients from around the North Shore, is remaining open while appealing a January notification from the state Department of Public Health of a license revocation.

The prime issue revolves around payment or non-payment of user fees by Sea View to the state. Smaller facilities like the 62-bed Sea View are exempt from the fees, but still eligible for state and federal aid.

“They haven’t been very good at paying [the aid money],” Sea View owner/administrator Stephen Comley II said, however. “Financial support is supposed to go to nursing homes, but that didn’t happen. The state decided to use the money for other things.”

He also feels “the state is trying to shut down nursing homes so they don’t have to pay for them.”

The federal government granted states the authority to charge a user fee, an assessment for each of the non-Medicare residents in nursing homes. Also known as a “Robin Hood” fee, the money is supposed to come from better-performing homes to help prop up ones that need financial assistance.

Comley calls the fees a tax that the state imposes, and says he believes they aren’t always used for their intended purpose.

According to regulations of the state Department of Health and Human Services, “each facility must pay a quarterly assessment” to HHS. The regulations further explain that each facility determines its quarterly fee “by multiplying its total non-Medicare patient days by the per diem fee established by Executive Office of Health and Human Services.”

EOHHS determines the per diem fee each year, and money collected goes to the commonwealth’s general fund.

Feeling Sea View is owed millions of dollars for the years the state wrongly charged the fees, and that it is exempt from paying the fees, Sea View stopped paying, which triggered the state to begin the process of revoking the home’s license.

In 2016, legal action determined that Sea View should have been exempt from the fees. A few days after the ruling in Sea View’s favor, the state changed the criteria that determine which nursing homes are exempt from the user fees. Despite the court ruling, the state enacted a new regulation that made Sea View responsible for the fees going forward. Comley feels this was a retaliatory move against him.

That decision is also being appealed, with Comley agreeing to pay the fees in the meantime.

“I had to suck it up,” he said.

While things were in flux, Sea View’s population dropped to 42 residents. Some staff members left.

“They were afraid we were going to close,” Comley remembers.

He said the facility is in good shape financially and filling up again, but acknowledges “you can fight City Hall, but it’s expensive. Lawyers are expensive.”

MassHealth issued the following statement:

“Sea View and MassHealth have reached an agreement on a payment plan to address the nursing facility’s user fee requirements. As a result, Sea View will remain open and can begin accepting new patients.”

MassHealth also issued the following background information:

“Massachusetts law has required skilled nursing facilities to pay a user fee for over a decade. The revenue from the user fee is used to support Medicaid rates to nursing facilities. The vast majority of the Commonwealth’s 400+ nursing facilities are in compliance with the user fee requirements.

“On February 14, 2018, MassHealth notified the DPH that Sea View has not met the requirement under state law to pay the user fee for over a year.

“Due to the failure of Sea View to meet this requirement, DPH was obligated to begin legal action against the facility to revoke their license to operate a long term care facility in Massachusetts.

“The legal process to revoke a facility’s license is lengthy and consists of many steps. DPH had taken the first step in this process by providing notification of the action to the facility and facilitating notification to each resident who lives in these facilities or their resident representative.

“The notification to the facility included information that there was an immediate freeze on the admission of new residents to the facility, and that within 14 days, the facility may notify DPH of its intent to appeal the license revocation or waive the right to appeal and proceed with an orderly closure.

“Based on the payment agreement, MassHealth withdrew its referral of Sea View to DPH for licensure revocation. On 3/9/18, DPH notified Sea View that that the referral had been withdrawn and removed the freeze on new admissions.”

Sea View was previously run by Stephen Comely Sr. It was founded in 1954 by his parents Winthrop Comley and Ruby Comley Mollison, who later became a resident.

It is located in a converted mansion built in 1907 and has been used in two movies, “13 Rue Madeline” in 1947 starring Jimmy Cagney and “House of Usher” in 2006, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story.

Comley Sr. is an activist who has focused much of his efforts on safety at the Seabrook nuclear plant. He even spoke to President Donald Trump about it at two campaign events in New Hampshire in 2015.

Comley Sr. says he is running for president in 2020, as he did in 2016.

He had no comment about the Sea View’s issues except to express support for his son.